Focus On: N. Reding & Sons, LLC

WRITER | CANDIE CONAT
PHOTOS | N. REDING & SONS, LLC

Vintage Industrial Uniques

With a love for metalwork and building classic cars, Jeremy Domanik was looking for a way to blend his hobby and a career. In January 2015, he and his wife Beth began laying the groundwork for a new business built on his joy in creating something new from something old.

Jeremy began experimenting with furnishings, such as lamps and chandeliers, and quickly realized that he enjoyed the more immediate gratification of building these pieces over long-term projects such as a hot rod. As for Beth, she had always wanted to do something related to home décor and design, and this offered the perfect opportunity for this husband-and-wife team to collaborate.

Because they were creating new pieces from old, the Domaniks wanted to tie the name of their new venture with history in some way. They decided upon N. Reding & Sons, which was the name of Beth’s great-great grandfather’s line of general stores in the Western UP’s copper country back in the 1800s.

Reding & Sons – a.k.a. Vintage Industrial Uniques – carries an interesting selection of Jeremy’s handcrafted creations along with accent items that Beth has sourced using her keen eye for design and style. Jeremy’s creations range from vintage industrial to early agricultural and even “steampunk” art pieces. You might enter the store to find a bistro table made from old copper parts or one from repurposed pieces of an antique cement mixer – or maybe one with an industrial cast-iron base sourced from a milk tank on an early 1900s dairy farm.

A large share of Jeremy’s work is commissioned, and his chandeliers are a particularly popular custom item. You will find a handful in the store on display, but the beauty of custom is designing them to fit a specific home and style. The Domaniks keep a good selection of “industrial salvage items” in the store to allow customers the chance to play a part in selecting items that will be used in their piece. Some of the most beloved items are pieces collected from locations around the state. From vintage cast iron tools out of Detroit factories that are stamped with location, names, and dates to piles of tractor gears, tools, and equipment from a centennial dairy farm in Mason, customers appreciate the history being displayed in their homes.

I found it particularly interesting to learn that many of these old tools and pieces of equipment are items most people have never seen. We knew they were there, doing some job to make life a little easier, but we rarely got a good look at them. For example, Jeremy describes a hay trolley that he used to make a chandelier. It would normally hang 40 or 50 feet up in the air, where no one would pay it the least attention, but when you get an up-close look at these sometimes ornate items, it turns out that they’re works of art on their own.

For all the remarkable pieces noted here, there are double that to be seen at Vintage Industrial Uniques. The Domaniks say that many people hear about the store and visit to browse, and then come back another time when they’re ready to buy the perfect piece they know won’t be found anywhere else. The problem is, with no two pieces alike, if you see something that strikes you, you’d better snatch it up!